Q. State the principle of zener diode? The basic principle of Zener diode is the Zener breakdown.

When a diode is heavily doped, its depletion region will be narrow. When a high reverse voltage is applied across the junction, there will be very strong electric field at the junction. And the electron hole pair generation takes place. Thus heavy current flows. This is known as Zener break down.

Q. What is Zener break down? When a diode is heavily doped, its depletion region will be narrow. When a high reverse voltage is applied across the junction, there will be very strong electric field at the junction. And the electron hole pair generation takes place. Thus heavy current flows. This is known as Zener break down. Q. What is the break down voltage of Zener diode? It is the reverse voltage at which break down of PN junction occurs
Q. Draw characteristic curve of zener diode and explain.

Characteristics
The below figure shows the current versus voltage curve for a Zener diode. Observe the nearly constant voltage in the breakdown region.

Zener diode characteristic curve

The forward bias region of a Zener diode is identical to that of a regular diode. The typical forward voltage at room temperature with a current of around 1 mA is around 0.6 volts. In the reverse bias condition the Zener diode is an open circuit and only a small leakage current is flowing as shown on the exaggerated plot. As the breakdown voltage is approached the current will begin to avalanche. The initial transition from leakage to breakdown is soft but then the current rapidly increases as shown on the plot. The voltage across the Zener diode in the

breakdown region is very nearly constant with only a small increase in voltage with increasing current. At some high current level the power dissipation of the diode becomes excessive and the part is destroyed. There is a minimum Zener current, Iz(min), that places the operating point in the desired breakdown. There is a maximum Zener current, Iz(max), at which the power dissipation drives the junction temperature to the maximum allowed. Beyond that current the diode can be damaged.
Q. Draw a simple voltage regulator circuit using zener diode and explain.

The purpose of a voltage regulator is to maintain a constant voltage across a load regardless of variations in the applied input voltage and variations in the load current. A typical Zener diode shunt regulator is shown in Figure 3. The resistor is selected so that when the input voltage is at VIN(min) and the load current is at I L(max) that the current through the Zener diode is at least I z(min). Then for all other combinations of input voltage and load current the Zener diode conducts the excess current thus maintaining a constant voltage across the load. The Zener conducts the least current when the load current is the highest and it conducts the most current when the load current is the lowest.

Zener diode shunt regulator

If there is no load resistance, shunt regulators can be used to dissipate total power through the series resistance and the Zener diode. Shunt regulators have an inherent current limiting advantage under load fault conditions because the series resistor limits excess current. A zener diode of break down voltage Vz is reverse connected to an input voltage source V i across a load resistance RL and a series resistor RS. The voltage across the zener will remain steady at its break down voltage VZ for all the values of zener current IZ as long as the current remains in the break down region. Hence a regulated DC output voltage V 0 = VZ is obtained across RL ,whenever the input voltage remains within a minimum and maximum voltage Basically there are two type of regulations

a) Line Regulation
In this type of regulation, series resistance and load resistance are fixed, only input voltage is changing. Output voltage remains the same as long as the input voltage is maintained above a minimum value.

Percentage of line regulation can be calculated by = where V0 is the output voltage and VIN is the input voltage and voltage for a particular change in input voltage . is the change in output

b) Load Regulation
In this type of regulation, input voltage is fixed and the load resistance is varying. Output volt remains same, as long as the load resistance is maintained above a minimum value.

Percentage of load regulation = where is the null load resistor voltage and is the full load resistor voltage

Design a Voltage Regulator

When selecting the zener diode, be sure that its maximum power rating is not exceeded. Imax
Maximum current for Zener diode

VZ Vin Vs VL IS IZ IL

Zener Diode standard voltage

Input voltage(it is known) Voltage across series resistance Voltage across the load resistance Current passing through the series resistance Current passing through the Zener diode Current passing through the load resistance

Calculating voltage and current The total current drawn from the source is the same as that through the series resistor

The current through the load resistor is

and the zener diode current is

If the voltage source is greater than Vz and If the voltage source is less than Vz

and